Deputy Agric Minister, George Oduro has backed claims by the Agric Minister that the New Patriotic Party’s Planting for Food And Jobs policy has created seven hundred and forty-five thousand jobs in the country.
Government has said its Planting for Food and Jobs programme has in its first year alone created some 745,000 jobs. The Agriculture Minister, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto said the jobs were created in the areas of input supply and distribution of surplus food resulting from the programme.
Justifying claims by the Agric Minister, the Deputy Minister who was speaking to a1radio’s Samuel Mbura on the station’s flagship programme, Daybreak Upper East said “the planting for food and jobs have done a great job and I’m happy for the farmers because farming is not easy and earning from their hard work is very important. Now let me give you the analysis of how we reached the number we put out there. For farmers, we registered two hundred and one thousand six hundred and twenty existing and new farmers. Apart from that, we were able to recruit One thousand two hundred of the Agric College students you talked about”.
He added that “when it comes to input ad the distributors those who supply fertilizers and seeds. If we engaged fifteen companies that distributed the fertilizers and seed if you tabulate this and the fact that the companies have warehouses across the country that employ people, you see the number of jobs we have created. Then you come to the harvesting, I mean the labour on the farms. Every farmer will employ a labourer to work with on the farm for harvesting the maize and other produce so employment is also created there”.
He further added that “now when it comes to the aggregators I was talking about we registered thousand three hundred and three aggregators so even if three of these aggregators are using three trucks, they will employ at least five people including the driver, mate, offloaders and other people just see the employment we have created for these people. Now let’s come to the buffer as well. The warehouses we are discussing, how many people are working in the warehouse? Calculate all across the country and you will see the number. Now those who take the food to the various schools including the schools under the Free SHS policy and those who are buying them and those who are preparing the food are all provided with employment so if you put all these together you will know that the number given by my minister is right”.
He assured farmer of the Upper East, Upper West and the Northern region that government’s One Village, One Dam will ease their challenges during the harmattan season.
Source:a1radioonline.com
